Faced with the grim prospect of treating only the desperately
needy, the Community Solutions program, the most comprehensive
social service agency in the region, is stepping up efforts to land
more private funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
Faced with the grim prospect of treating only the desperately needy, the Community Solutions program, the most comprehensive social service agency in the region, is stepping up efforts to land more private funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
By May 11, Community Solutions will ask residents in San Benito County, Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Martin via direct mail and face-to-face conversations, to dig into their pockets to help fund programs that reached 14,588 people last year.
The effort is a partial solution to state and local revenue shortfalls that in a worst-case scenario could have providers treating only the sickest of the sick or cutting some of the 20 programs the agency has established in recent years.
“We didn’t have to cut anything this year, but come July it looks like we’ll lose some funding,” said Erin O’Brien, chief executive officer for Community Solutions who just last month was second in command. “What we’re absolutely committed to doing is preserving as many clients and services as we have now, but I’m very very nervous.”
Community Solutions, which moved its headquarters from Morgan Hill to Gilroy less than a year ago, provides education and counseling services to youth, families and the elderly, including foster children and the mentally ill. It also operates a rape crisis telephone line and a battered women’s shelter.
“We’re definitely stepping up the effort to get more individual donors, people who can give $25 to those who can donate thousands,” said Lisa DeSilva, director of community and resource development for Community Solutions. “Special (fund-raiser) events typically are not the way to go. We need to look at more individual donors at all levels. It’s something we’ve just been starting to cultivate over the last couple years.”
Although much of the organization’s fund raising efforts will be focused in Santa Clara County, DeSilva said local residents who are already on their donor list will be included.
“Any direct mail effort will include people in San Benito County,” she said. “We have quite a number of supporters in San Benito County.”
Community Solutions offers a domestic violence and a sexual assault program in San Benito County.
“We do get quite a number of women from San Benito County at our women’s shelter,” DeSilva said.
The agency does not have firm numbers detailing how much funding is generated by private donors now, nor has it set a specific fund-raising goal.
“Those are all things we’re in the process of putting together. Generally, foundations and private donors give smaller amounts over shorter periods of time. Government funds usually come in larger amounts over a period of several years,” DeSilva said.
Community Solutions typically sends out mailings asking for donations twice a year, but future mailers will now be followed by phone calls and face-to-face meetings with residents and business leaders.
“We’re really going to step up those face-to-face requests,” DeSilva said.
Community Solutions, which operates on a $7.2 million budget, has weathered the storm of mid-year budget cuts at the state level.
Santa Clara County officials estimate they’ll have to close a budget gap approaching $160 million, and it could be much worse depending on how the state deals with its massive $34.6 billion shortfall.
“It’s early enough in the process that nothing is set, but when they (the county) get cut, we get cut,” O’Brien said.
County officials and non-profit interest groups are working together, O’Brien said, to identify which cuts would harm clients the least.
“I’m living in budget meetings at this point,” O’Brien said. “No cut is painless, but we can try to find ways to make cuts that cause as little pain as possible.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Gray Davis proposed a massive shift of state health and welfare programs to local governments to be funded by raising taxes. But county officials and the state’s nonpartisan budget analyst have expressed doubt that counties would receive the amount of money they need to fully cover their assumption of those services.
To the horror of city and county officials across the state, Davis’ plan to balance the budget includes a proposal to strip local governments of $4.2 billion in key funding over the next 17 months by taking away money that is given to cities and counties to help cover revenues they lost when the state lowered vehicle license fees.
As Community Solutions ventures into more private funding opportunities, leaders of the five-year-old agency are dealing with two ironies.
First, the economic downturn that caused the government revenue shortfall also impacted the businesses and donors Community Solutions want to approach. Even the stumbling stock market factors in, since businesses and individuals typically set up foundations that use interest earnings to make donations.
“There’s just less money out there, yet the demand for it has gone up,” DeSilva said.
The second irony is that demand for services from Community Solutions typically increases as economic times get tighter.
“When the economy tanks the need for services goes up. People are out of jobs, and along with poverty come a whole lot of other stressors that people start coping with,” O’Brien observed. “Families get stressed and a whole lot of dysfunctions pop out.”
Community Solutions was created in 1998 when three groups – Discover Alternatives, South Valley Counseling and The Bridge – merged into one social service agency. The agency’s most noted program is the education, intervention and prevention services for sexual assault. The program reached nearly 6,000 individuals in fiscal 2001-02.
Almost 2,000 first and multiple offenders use the agency’s drinking and driving program in lieu of jail time or as a condition of their probation. Another 432 people are part of the so-called restorative justice program that sets up, among other things, community service plans and prevention classes for juveniles. If youths successfully complete their restorative justice plan, they can avoid detention in juvenile hall.
“We’re hoping to find individuals who believe in these services and want to step up to the plate to help the community,” DeSilva said. “A lot of times people do have the desire to help out, but often are not asked. We’re asking.”
For more information or to learn how to donate, go to www.communitysolutions.org or call (408) 842-7138.
South Valley Newspapers reporters Jon Jeisel and Eric Leins contributed to this report.
